Children's Church

If I ever, ever said anything against children's church in the past, I recant fully. I'm sure it can be abused. But so can any good thing.

The "families should always be together for the worship service -- we don't believe in children's church" is a lovely idea in theory. And STUPID in practice. Until the kids are old enough to sit still, and not pull their sister's hair, and not babble about sunshines and trains and cars during prayer time, or loudly declare that the lights are on or off during the next prayer time...nursery and children's church is a good idea.

And I'm not saying this because I give a damn about the people sitting next to the kids...they're not really the ones suffering from this. The one bearing the brunt of it is the mom who wants to be able to focus on God, and prayer, and worship for one hour out of her crazy week, and CAN'T because she's having to police her kids every two seconds to keep them from disrupting everybody else.

Most kids are not perfect little angles by the age of two and three.

I've decided I'm fortunate that I'm not a mom yet, and have the leisure of (theoretically if I were perfect) giving God undivided attention during a church service.

And, yes. This was spurred by the fact that I had to play mom for the neighbor's kids during church in church this Sunday. :-P

Maybe a caveat: if it were a cultural norm for kids to always be along in the service, and no one -- especially the pastor -- blinked when the kids cried and babbled and laughed, we just considered all that a part of what HAPPENED when the family of God got together to worship him...well, yeah. Then it would work. And maybe that more relaxed and communal atmosphere is what we should strive for. But it sure isn't what exists right now.